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The Journal of Chemical Physics

Density matrix renormalization group calculations on relative energies of transition metal complexes and clusters

Konrad Heinrich Marti, Irina Malkin Ondík, Gerrit Moritz, Markus Reiher

Published Jan 3, 2008• 184 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The accurate first-principles calculation of relative energies of transition metal complexes and clusters is still one of the great challenges for quantum chemistry. Dense lying electronic states and near degeneracies make accurate predictions difficult, and multireference methods with large active spaces are required. Often density functional theory calculations are employed for feasibility reasons, but their actual accuracy for a given system is usually difficult to assess (also because accurate ab initio reference data are lacking). In this work we study the performance of the density matrix renormalization group algorithm for the prediction of relative energies of transition metal complexes and clusters of different spin and molecular structure. In particular, the focus is on the relative energetical order of electronic states of different spin for mononuclear complexes and on the relative energy of different isomers of dinuclear oxo-bridged copper clusters.

DOI
10.1063/1.2805383

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The accurate first-principles calculation of relative energies of transition metal complexes and clusters is still one of the great challenges for quantum chemistry. Dense lying electronic states and near degeneracies make accurate predictions difficult, and multireference methods with large active spaces are required. Often density functional theory calculations are employed for feasibility reasons, but their actual accuracy for a given system is usually difficult to assess (also because accurate ab initio reference data are lacking). In this work we study the performance of the density matrix renormalization group algorithm for the prediction of relative energies of transition metal complexes and clusters of different spin and molecular structure. In particular, the focus is on the relative energetical order of electronic states of different spin for mononuclear complexes and on the relative energy of different isomers of dinuclear oxo-bridged copper clusters.
This article presents an efficient and parallelized implementation of the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) algorithm for quantum chemistry calculations. The DMRG method as a large-scale multireference electronic structure model is by nature particularly efficient for one-dimensionally correlated systems, while the present development is oriented toward applications for polynuclear transition metal compounds, in which the macroscopic one-dimensional structure of electron correlation is absent. A straightforward extension of the DMRG algorithm is proposed with further improvements and aggressive optimizations to allow its application with large multireference active space, which is often demanded for metal compound calculations. Special efficiency is achieved by making better use of sparsity and symmetry in the operator and wave function representations. By accomplishing computationally intensive DMRG calculations, the authors have found that a large number of renormalized basis states are required to represent high entanglement of the electron correlation for metal compound applications, and it is crucial to adopt auxiliary perturbative correction to the projected density matrix during the DMRG sweep optimization in order to attain proper convergence to the solution. Potential energy curve calculations for the Cr(2) molecule near the known equilibrium precisely predicted the full configuration interaction energies with a correlation space of 24 electrons in 30 orbitals [denoted by (24e,30o)]. The energies are demonstrated to be accurate to 0.6mE(h) (the error from the extrapolated best value) when as many as 10,000 renormalized basis states are employed for the left and right DMRG block representations. The relative energy curves for [Cu(2)O(2)](2+) along the isomerization coordinate were obtained from DMRG and other correlated calculations, for which a fairly large orbital space (32e,62o) is modeled as a full correlation space. The DMRG prediction nearly overlaps with the energy curve from the coupled cluster with singles, doubles, and perturbative triple [CCSD(T)] calculations, while the multireference complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF) calculations with the small reference configuration (8e,8o) are found to overestimate the biradical character of the electronic state of [Cu(2)O(2)](2+) according to the one-electron density matrix analysis.
Quantum Chemistry / Electron Correlation / Density Matrix Renormalization Group / Transition Metal Chemistry In this work, we derive the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) algorithm in the language of configuration interaction. Furthermore, the development of DMRG in quantum chemistry is reviewed and DMRG-specific peculiarities are discussed. Finally, we discuss new results for a dinuclear μ -oxo bridged copper cluster, which is an important active-site structure in transition-metal chemistry, an area in which we pioneered the application of DMRG.
Electronic structure theory faces many computational challenges in transition metal chemistry. Usually, density functional theory is the method of choice for theoretical studies on transition metal complexes and clusters mostly because it is the only feasible one, although its results are not systematically improvable. By contrast, multireference ab initio methods could provide a correct description of the electronic structure, but are limited to small molecules because of the tremendous computational resources required. In recent years, conceptually new ab initio methods emerged that turned out to be promising for theoretical coordination chemistry. We review and discuss two efficient parametrization schemes for the electronic wave function, the matrix product states and the complete-graph tensor network states. Their advantages are demonstrated at example transition metal complexes. Especially, tensor network states might provide the key to accurately describe strongly correlated and magnetic molecular systems in transition metal chemistry.
Abstract The accurate and reliable calculation of different electronic states in transition metal systems is a persistent challenge for theoretical chemistry. The widespread use of density functional theory for computing the relative energies of states with different spin in transition metal complexes not only has not discouraged, but often, owing to its limitations, has motivated the development and refinement of first‐principles wavefunction–based methods, including both single‐reference and multireference approaches. A significant boost for the latter has been the emergence of the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) as a reliable tool in applied quantum chemistry. By enabling the use of larger active spaces than conventionally possible, DMRG has opened up areas of transition metal chemistry that were previously inaccessible to multireference approaches. The present perspective provides an overview of representative studies that make use of DMRG methods and discusses recent applications to spin‐state energetics of transition metal systems. These range from mononuclear to exchange‐coupled systems that define an important emerging field of DMRG applications. Major achievements are highlighted and potential pitfalls are identified with a view toward future methodological developments as well as extensions in the applicability of DMRG‐based approaches to problems of spin‐state energetics and exchange‐coupling in transition metal chemistry.
The ab-initio density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) is a tool that can be applied to a wide variety of interesting problems in quantum chemistry. Here, we examine the density matrix renormalization group from the vantage point of the quantum chemistry user. What kinds of problems is the DMRG well-suited to? What are the largest systems that can be treated at practical cost? What sort of accuracies can be obtained, and how do we reason about the computational difficulty in different molecules? By examining a diverse benchmark set of molecules: π-electron systems, benchmark main-group and transition metal dimers, and the Mn-oxo-salen and Fe-porphine organometallic compounds, we provide some answers to these questions, and show how the density matrix renormalization group is used in practice.